That joke isn’t funny anymore. The once ironic, genre-hopping idiot savants of MFUJ have turned into a band of miserable misfits that aren’t even producing music. Self pity demands the Smiths, Anger demands Rage Against the Machine and Gravitas requires Johnny Cash. Guess whose song we’ll play? Guess again. Oh. You were right the first time? My bad.

And so our hero, Brick, returned to his room after a long absence. Having bid farewell to his beloved effects machine that gave his guitar a distinctive edge to it, the guitarist returned his butterscotch telecaster to its dust covered holster by the bookshelf next to his TV. He removed his iconic falcon bandana and let it slip from his fingers to the floor. Exhausted from hours of pondering life’s mysteries on the balcony overlooking the MFUJ office building, Brick collapsed onto his broken futon. The mattress extended beyond its frame, the metal bars of the frame protruded palpably through the sack of fabric and feathers but it made no difference to the melancholy guitarist.

Hard times had finally caught up to the band. Its reputation was forever besmirched with scandal and economic humiliation. The lead singer had succumbed to his insatiable libido and outraged the community with his exploits. The drummer’s series of books had been cancelled after it was discovered that most of his pithy little haikus were actually devoid of meaning and were written with no artistic purpose behind them (the publisher happened to care deeply about such things despite the consistent sales that Shadow’s books seemed to have). Only Tigerman, the inept bassist, was immune to scandal. Perhaps it was his complete mental break from reality and innate good natured personality that spared him from disgrace. Perhaps it was his eternal longing for a love he could never find that distracted him beyond doing anything remotely interesting, let alone scandalous. Don’t even get us started on G Mod, the greedy manager of the band whose selfishness single handedly ruined the band’s credit rating and reputation, reducing them from MFUJ to MFU+

However, Brick, the band’s originator, bore the lion’s share of responsibility for his band’s inertia and failure to launch. After 4 years, 5 albums and 0 live performances, the band had failed to find an audience or a legitimate record contract. Despite G Mod’s constant claims that he was well connected in the music industry, he had time and time again proven himself inept at promoting the band or generating revenue of any kind that would help sustain the 5 of them. As chief songwriter, Brick had failed to tap into the zeitgeist of the new millennium. His lyrics were either hyper personal or incredibly detached and nonsensical, thus making it difficult for others to relate to or enjoy the music as much as he enjoyed it. Though he continued to strive to improve his technique and came up with new riffs and melodies, the creative fire and lyrical intensity that had fueled his best post-ironic era songs had cooled and now he was going through the motions. His muse was long absent and replacing her proved impossible.

Brick remained despondent.  He rolled off his terribly uncomfortable excuse for a bed and searched through his notes. He found unfinished lyrics and guitar rhythms long lost. He found the early versions of his long abandoned novel, reminders of his youthful hopes that he abandoned for his longstanding love affair with his misery… (Editor’s Note: the rest of this paragraph was removed because it became too emo to bear.)

On his calendar there was a reminder marked for an upcoming recording date. The second MFUJSF webisode was in the works. He would be playing a reduced role in this one. It just gave him more time to brood.

(Editor’s Note: We just checked the post and found it low on humor. We apologize. Our usual comedy writing staff was fired after the recent downgrade. They were too expensive to keep on payroll. Can you believe they actually wanted to be able to afford 3 meals a day and have time to sleep? Excuse me for a second. What? That joke is not politically correct? I have to apologize soon before…oh no. Here comes the blog writer’s union. We’ll see you next time. We have to take care of this little situation…. Hello. I’m… uh-uh…Well, we didn’t mean to. Hey! What are you doing? Oh the humanity!!!)

Oh and Цой Жив!